Initial Ontario Cannabis Retail Licenses to be Awarded Via Lottery

The Ontario government announced last night that it will be taking a phased approach to rolling out cannabis retail sales licenses within the province due to a national supply shortage of product.

Potential retailers will now be required to submit an expression of interest form online between January 7 – January 9, 2019. All expressions of interst will be put into a lottery pool for a draw, which will be conducted on January 11, 2019 with the results being posted within 24 hours.

In order to facilitate the new lottery roll-out system, the government has drafted a new regulation, which can be read in its entirety here.

Under the new regulation, only 25 retail store authorizations may be initially issued and will be allocated as follows:

(a) five stores will be granted in the Toronto Region;

(b) six stores will be granted within the Greater Toronto Area Region;

(c) five stores will be granted within the East Region;

(d) two stores will be granted within the North Region; and

(e) seven stores will be granted within the West Region.

Keep checking back here fore more details on the Ontario retail process as they become available.